Had an eye opening guitar lesson last night

[JerEvil]

I just found out about the blending part a couple of days ago watching this lesson. GREAT lesson, one of the best I have ever seen online , he has a couple of others 4-5 which are ALL GREAT LESSONS.
Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9sAhJvG ... URRHby2wEw

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but this isn't correct. See how he starts on A and calls the key A but starts playing the A minor scale? Well, the would be the key of Aminor, not A(considering when simply using a letter name infers it being major). Coming down three frets from the root places one in the MINOR scale, not major. Starting from a minor key and moving down three frets doesn't work the same way. Unless he and I simply have very different knowledge of the fretboard, he seems backwards to me? Gorehog is on point, however.

Good point. F# (3 frets down from A) isn't even in the C Major/A Minor Scale. Anyone explain what's going on here?

This is one of the things I learned for quick improv stuff.

If a song is in the Key of A and you at LEAST know that going in, you have a few seconds to see (in a live jam situation) if your index finger should start on the A or if your pinky should land on the A. That'll tell you if it is Major or Minor. From there you can use your Major Scale shapes or pentatonic patterns accordingly and "get through".

I'm watching him play at work with subtitles and no sound so I probably sound retarded, but if he's playing in A minor, F# major is out of nowhere. If he's playing in A major, then F# minor makes complete sense. But he's clearly playing in A minor pentatonic starting at the 5th fret of the 6th string. He then moves down three frets and says he's in F# Major Pentatonic. F# is not in the C major/A minor scale - that's what's confusing. At the end of the day, if it sounds good it sounds good. I'll play around with it when I get home.

Gotcha. Like I said, I have no theory training at all so none of it makes sense to me. I really need to start taking lessons again though. i have a guy here who I am going to work with. He's a great dude and super easy going.

 

[thisguy]

I just found out about the blending part a couple of days ago watching this lesson. GREAT lesson, one of the best I have ever seen online , he has a couple of others 4-5 which are ALL GREAT LESSONS.
Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9sAhJvG ... URRHby2wEw

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but this isn't correct. See how he starts on A and calls the key A but starts playing the A minor scale? Well, the would be the key of Aminor, not A(considering when simply using a letter name infers it being major). Coming down three frets from the root places one in the MINOR scale, not major. Starting from a minor key and moving down three frets doesn't work the same way. Unless he and I simply have very different knowledge of the fretboard, he seems backwards to me? Gorehog is on point, however.

Good point. F# (3 frets down from A) isn't even in the C Major/A Minor Scale. Anyone explain what's going on here?

This is one of the things I learned for quick improv stuff.

If a song is in the Key of A and you at LEAST know that going in, you have a few seconds to see (in a live jam situation) if your index finger should start on the A or if your pinky should land on the A. That'll tell you if it is Major or Minor. From there you can use your Major Scale shapes or pentatonic patterns accordingly and "get through".

I'm watching him play at work with subtitles and no sound so I probably sound retarded, but if he's playing in A minor, F# major is out of nowhere. If he's playing in A major, then F# minor makes complete sense. But he's clearly playing in A minor pentatonic starting at the 5th fret of the 6th string. He then moves down three frets and says he's in F# Major Pentatonic. F# is not in the C major/A minor scale - that's what's confusing. At the end of the day, if it sounds good it sounds good. I'll play around with it when I get home.

Edit:

A bunch of people in the comments have this same problem. Here is someone's explanation:

"The thing that makes blues sound the way it does is because the of the A minor scale you play in the key of A major. So if you're playing blues track in A major, you would play the A minor pentatonic to get the bluesy sound. In addition to that, you can use the F# minor pentatonic as well because it's still in the key of A major, so it adds like extra color to your bluesyness.


So let's say it's blues in C major, then the C minor pentatonic is what makes it bluesy and the relative A minor adds the extra major sound to it. You combine both major and minor scales in the key of C to get that extra bluesy color to it. Hope this made sense! feel free to ask me if you need more clarification!"

Look up two posts from this one I just quoted and see if that helps.

 

[thisguy]

I just found out about the blending part a couple of days ago watching this lesson. GREAT lesson, one of the best I have ever seen online , he has a couple of others 4-5 which are ALL GREAT LESSONS.
Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9sAhJvG ... URRHby2wEw

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but this isn't correct. See how he starts on A and calls the key A but starts playing the A minor scale? Well, the would be the key of Aminor, not A(considering when simply using a letter name infers it being major). Coming down three frets from the root places one in the MINOR scale, not major. Starting from a minor key and moving down three frets doesn't work the same way. Unless he and I simply have very different knowledge of the fretboard, he seems backwards to me? Gorehog is on point, however.

Good point. F# (3 frets down from A) isn't even in the C Major/A Minor Scale. Anyone explain what's going on here?

This is one of the things I learned for quick improv stuff.

If a song is in the Key of A and you at LEAST know that going in, you have a few seconds to see (in a live jam situation) if your index finger should start on the A or if your pinky should land on the A. That'll tell you if it is Major or Minor. From there you can use your Major Scale shapes or pentatonic patterns accordingly and "get through".

I'm watching him play at work with subtitles and no sound so I probably sound retarded, but if he's playing in A minor, F# major is out of nowhere. If he's playing in A major, then F# minor makes complete sense. But he's clearly playing in A minor pentatonic starting at the 5th fret of the 6th string. He then moves down three frets and says he's in F# Major Pentatonic. F# is not in the C major/A minor scale - that's what's confusing. At the end of the day, if it sounds good it sounds good. I'll play around with it when I get home.

Edit:

A bunch of people in the comments have this same problem. Here is someone's explanation:

"The thing that makes blues sound the way it does is because the of the A minor scale you play in the key of A major. So if you're playing blues track in A major, you would play the A minor pentatonic to get the bluesy sound. In addition to that, you can use the F# minor pentatonic as well because it's still in the key of A major, so it adds like extra color to your bluesyness.


So let's say it's blues in C major, then the C minor pentatonic is what makes it bluesy and the relative A minor adds the extra major sound to it. You combine both major and minor scales in the key of C to get that extra bluesy color to it. Hope this made sense! feel free to ask me if you need more clarification!"

One of the things that really defined very early blues was the tension between the major tonality of the song and the "blue" notes like b3rd or b5th being mixed in. B.B. King also did this a lot. I would say that all of the good blues players mix it up but B.B. in particular used the major pentatonic as kind of a home base for a lot of his playing.

 

[Bxlxaxkxe]

I just found out about the blending part a couple of days ago watching this lesson. GREAT lesson, one of the best I have ever seen online , he has a couple of others 4-5 which are ALL GREAT LESSONS.
Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9sAhJvG ... URRHby2wEw

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but this isn't correct. See how he starts on A and calls the key A but starts playing the A minor scale? Well, the would be the key of Aminor, not A(considering when simply using a letter name infers it being major). Coming down three frets from the root places one in the MINOR scale, not major. Starting from a minor key and moving down three frets doesn't work the same way. Unless he and I simply have very different knowledge of the fretboard, he seems backwards to me? Gorehog is on point, however.

Good point. F# (3 frets down from A) isn't even in the C Major/A Minor Scale. Anyone explain what's going on here?

Responding to the last two comments:

The video is about mixing both A major and A minor and he clearly points out whether he is playing major or minor.

Fuego is correct about moving from the root of a major scale down to the 6th degree of the scale (ex. In C major going down to the A note) to get to the root of a minor scale. But here he is talking about moving a pentatonic shape down 3 frets from a minor pentatonic (A minor Pentatonic = A-C-D-E-G) which gives a major pentatonic (A major pentatonic = F#-A-B-C#-E)

As far as F# not being in C minor. The F# he's referring to is in the A major scale.

Not brought up in this discussion I don't think is the fact that there are multiple types of minor scales. Dorian (from the 2nd degree of a major scale) Phrygian (from the 3rd degree) and Aeolian/Natural/Pure minor (from the 6th degree of the scale.

For A minors it would be like this:
A Dorian minor based off of the 2nd of G major would be A-B-C-D-E-F#-G.
A Phrygian minor based off of the 3rd of F Major would be A-Bb-C-D-E-F-G.
A Aeolian minor based off the 6th of C major would be A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

There are also altered scales like Harmonic minor, Melodic minor, etc. so there are lots of possibilities to look at.

I hope this post doesn't come across poorly or condescending. I don't mean for it to be that way. I'm just trying to be to the point.

Not at all man. What I didn't realize is that we're in A major. I assumed we were in A minor because he started in A minor pentatonic. Apparently, the blues defies this.

 

[thisguy]

I just found out about the blending part a couple of days ago watching this lesson. GREAT lesson, one of the best I have ever seen online , he has a couple of others 4-5 which are ALL GREAT LESSONS.
Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9sAhJvG ... URRHby2wEw

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but this isn't correct. See how he starts on A and calls the key A but starts playing the A minor scale? Well, the would be the key of Aminor, not A(considering when simply using a letter name infers it being major). Coming down three frets from the root places one in the MINOR scale, not major. Starting from a minor key and moving down three frets doesn't work the same way. Unless he and I simply have very different knowledge of the fretboard, he seems backwards to me? Gorehog is on point, however.

Good point. F# (3 frets down from A) isn't even in the C Major/A Minor Scale. Anyone explain what's going on here?

Responding to the last two comments:

The video is about mixing both A major and A minor and he clearly points out whether he is playing major or minor.

Fuego is correct about moving from the root of a major scale down to the 6th degree of the scale (ex. In C major going down to the A note) to get to the root of a minor scale. But here he is talking about moving a pentatonic shape down 3 frets from a minor pentatonic (A minor Pentatonic = A-C-D-E-G) which gives a major pentatonic (A major pentatonic = F#-A-B-C#-E)

As far as F# not being in C minor. The F# he's referring to is in the A major scale.

Not brought up in this discussion I don't think is the fact that there are multiple types of minor scales. Dorian (from the 2nd degree of a major scale) Phrygian (from the 3rd degree) and Aeolian/Natural/Pure minor (from the 6th degree of the scale.

For A minors it would be like this:
A Dorian minor based off of the 2nd of G major would be A-B-C-D-E-F#-G.
A Phrygian minor based off of the 3rd of F Major would be A-Bb-C-D-E-F-G.
A Aeolian minor based off the 6th of C major would be A-B-C-D-E-F-G.

There are also altered scales like Harmonic minor, Melodic minor, etc. so there are lots of possibilities to look at.

I hope this post doesn't come across poorly or condescending. I don't mean for it to be that way. I'm just trying to be to the point.

Not at all man. What I didn't realize is that we're in A major. I assumed we were in A minor because he started in A minor pentatonic. Apparently, the blues defies this.

Cool!

Personally, I wouldn't look at it as being in A major or minor but just in A because he's mixing scales. It's an overall "A" tonality. To me it's more like a mixolydian, dominant 7, type of thing because jazz/blues players will throw in every note they can squeeze out of their instruments and still make it sound good in a vamp over a chord like that.